The Mobra Story

Discussion of the 426 Street / Strip HEMIs.

Moderators: scottm, TrWaters, 392heminut

Post Reply
User avatar
scottm
Posts: 3443
Joined: Wed Aug 29, 2001 7:00 pm
Location: Texas
Contact:

The Mobra Story

Post by scottm »

The Mobra Story
http://www.xs4all.nl/~luukb/mobra.html

As of right now, here's what it says...
Here is the never released story about the Mobra. If you know more about this please mail to the below emailaccounts.

In 1966, Carrol Shelby stashed a few Cobra bodies away for future use anf 2 of his employees (?, I don't know ANY names, but Phil Remington has came up...) contacted Chrysler drag-race engine builder Buddy Martin to build them a 426 Street Hemi for "a special project". The Hemi was fitted with aluminum Offenhauser heads, a Moon intake with 4 Weber IDA 58mm cross-ram's, and a New Process A-833 4-speed manual. These two employees contacted Carrol and wanted the go-ahead and he said "OK", after all, he didn't really like Ford, he there for his own purposes. The "Mobra" as it was dubbed was fitted with the aforementioned 426 Hemi and 4-speed, along with a Chrysler Dana 60 posi-traction rear-end with 4.11 gearing, large Jaeger competition gauges, and the complete interior from the standard Cobra, less the butt backward Mustang shifter. A 1965 Barracuda shifter was fitted to the car. This is were it gets muddled. Their were supposedly 7 made, 4 with Webers and 3 with Hillborn mechanical fuel injection, all with 4-speeds and the above things. According to my source (E-MAIL if you need more info...), they were driven and tested around Buckinghamshire and near Newcastle- upon-Avon in England, away from Shelby's English production and Shelby-American. >From what I could tell, all 7 still exist in the US, Britain, and Switzerland. Then in '67 when Ford introduced the GT40, a "prototype" was "acquried" in England and sent to a shop in south London were Carrol, Dan Gurney, and Bruce McLaren secretly met to build a Hemi-powered GT40. This engine was also built by Buddy Martin and had Hillborn mechanical injection with a flow rate of 1500cfm (Cubic Feet per Minute), along with the ZF 5-speed transaxle used in the GT40 and DeTomaso Pantera. This car was never seen after '68, it was seen driven onto a covered trailor and loaded onto a giant crate headed for the US via ocean-going vessel. It may or may not have run at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut and then was never seen again. It may have went to the crusher, but I have my doubts about such a rare car.
I found a link to this site, so I'm not sure if its old or new. I'm asking.
User avatar
scottm
Posts: 3443
Joined: Wed Aug 29, 2001 7:00 pm
Location: Texas
Contact:

Re: The Mobra Story

Post by scottm »

I'm hearing that Buddy Martin referenced as an engine builder is a red flag.
speedicusmaximus
Posts: 143
Joined: Thu May 18, 2006 11:31 am
Location: UK

Re: The Mobra Story

Post by speedicusmaximus »

Scott,

Interestingly, there's such no place as "Newcastle upon Avon". The river Avon is in the South West of the UK. Newcastle upon Tyne is the real deal, but it's in the North East of the UK, whereas Buckinghamshire is in the South East, fairly close to London. An easy enough days drive from one to the other though, so that is possible.

Would the 426 actually fit in there ? Baring in mind how much work was required to fit the 427 ford ?

When was this posted, April 1st ?

Mike
Beep ! Beep !
User avatar
scottm
Posts: 3443
Joined: Wed Aug 29, 2001 7:00 pm
Location: Texas
Contact:

Re: The Mobra Story

Post by scottm »

speedicusmaximus wrote:When was this posted, April 1st ?
Indeed, that's what I'm wondering... :)
mart
Posts: 536
Joined: Tue Mar 22, 2005 2:06 pm

Re: The Mobra Story

Post by mart »

scottm wrote:I'm hearing that Buddy Martin
referenced as an engine builder is a red flag.
-------------------------
Hmm?? Was the original story dated 'April 1', perhaps? <LOL>
A few other 'details' in this story strike me as being bogus too .
The first is the reference to the 426 Hemi being fitted with
"Offenhauser heads". Offy never produced cylinder heads for
Hemis (or for anything else either as far as I know!) Intakes, yes,
but cylinder heads, no way.

Another 'detail' that doesn't fit either, is that there were allegedly
7 "Mobras" built. That's actually a lot of cars and if they they had
been produced, information, photos, stories etc about them surely
would have surfaced, either at the time and if not then, then certainly
over the years since. If 7 cars were produced, where are they>
How come no one has ever seen one and no documentation exists?

And a Dana 60 in a Cobra?? I really doubt that too. First a Dana 60
is a huge, heavy chunk of Iron , not what you'd use in a lightweight
sportscar. Besides the excessive weight of a Dana 60, the strength
of a Dana 60 is only needed in heavy, high horse, cars, used for
drag racing where they are subjected to 5000 rpm-plus standing starts.
That doesn't happen in road racing and even if it did, a lightweight car
like a Cobra wouldn't need or use a Dana 60!(I'm almost surprised that
the author didn't claim that the 'Mobra' used the ultra-rare 'Ramcharchers'
magnesuim Danas, even though the few that were ever produced ,
weren't even made untill several yeears after the alleged' Mobras'!<LOL>

As for putting a Sox & Marin built, full race 426 Hemi into a GT40
that strikes me as even more urban legend and wishful thinking
too. First when Ford had Hollman-Moody build the 427 LeMans GT40's,
H-M actually had to detune the 427's to limit the horsepower so the
cars, engines and particularly the transaxles could survive 24 hours of
Le Mans. Ford could have just used their standard NASCAR engine
and easily gotten another 100 or 125 horsepower over and above the
GT40 'LeMans 427'. Or they could have gone all out and used a 427
SOHC for yet another 100 or hp above that too!. But they didn't do
either, because the GT40 chassis and transaxle couldn't take the additional
power. Why then,if a standard Ford NASCAR 427 was already too powerful
to be reliable in a GT40, would someone try sticking an even more powerful
and heavier 426 Hemi into a GT40? Even if they could have beefed a GT40
chassis enough to withstand the additional power and weight - and somehow
'scratch-built' (made of vacuum-degassed forged unobtanium, built by
savant Nazi slave elves and reverse engineered at Area 51 from captured UFOs
perhaps? <GRIN><LOL>) a transaxle strong enough to live behind a 426 Race
Hemi, I doubt that for endurance racing they'd have sourced the engines from
Sox & Martin! S&M built drag race engines. If someone was looking for a Race
Hemi for any sort of endurance or road racing, they'd have surely gone to one
of the NASCAR engine builders of the day like Ray Nichols or Petty Enterprises
instead. To me, the whole story - both about the 'Mobra' and and the 'Hemi GT40' is,
putting it politely, a bunch of internet spread and spewed fiction!

mart
======================================================
Post Reply